Brown vs. Board of Education

Today we visited the Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site, which is located in Monroe Elementary School, an African American segregated school where the Brown children went to school. Their parents joined several other families in filing lawsuits challenging segregation. In 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown vs Board of Education declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

When we pulled into the visitor parking lot, ours was only the second vehicle in the lot. We assumed there must be other parking and more visitors, but evidently not. We were met by a park ranger at the door. He told us about the exhibits and pointed us to the introductory film. We actually learned some things we hadn't known, as well as being moved and inspired by the many people who worked for justice and equality. For example, we hadn't been aware that a black woman astronaut had flown aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor or that five separate cases from different states were combined under the title "Brown vs. Board of Education Topeka."

We packed up reluctantly to leave the peaceful lake and go back to the factory in Junction City. It was only a 74 mile drive, so we didn't leave until after 5:00 p.m. Just six miles short of our goal, we were startled to hear a loud noise and hissing. We thought we might have blown a tire. Instead it turned out to be the air bags on the Hensley hitch that had blown a hole and all the air had come hissing out. We decided it was safe to go on to the factory, but Ken drove slowly.

At New Horizons, we discovered that the Corams are still here, and that unexpectedly, so are Lynn and Stuart Jeffries. They had run into a post of some sort and cause widespread damage to the side of their rig, including tearing out a window. Ouch! That's what we have insurance for, but it's no fun to be going to the factory for repairs instead of on to further travels.


We ended up doing all our walking this evening after dinner, in the dark. We walked around the undeveloped loop a couple of times. Not the most exciting walk, but at least very little traffic.

Ernie stopped by to chat, and he reassured us that we were lucky--they have an airbag kit and will not need to order parts (we hope that's true).